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Captain's Log: The post-Vegas Star Trek Online roundup

Spending two weeks away from the game I love is always a challenge. Star Trek Online came up with some nifty things while we were away in Las Vegas enjoying the Star Trek Convention, and I'm back to cover what they are.

Star Trek Online's Fleet Week bonuses are out for a limited time, a new ship has appeared in the ZEN Store, additional account bank slots are now available for purchase, rewards are now available for those who helped test Season Six on the Tribble test server, and a small update was made to clarify the state of the Foundry. So join me past the jump and we'll catch up on the game!

Fleet Week is in full swing

Last week, STO fired up Fleet Week with a small set of bonuses for players. According to the game's site, from now until approximately 1:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday, August 23rd, players can earn extra fleet marks. Players can earn extra fleet marks not only from the missions that normally award them but from a special daily Foundry mission available under the Investigate Officer Reports assignment tab.

Players will also be able to obtain bonus fleet marks from the following queued and story-based missions:

While the mice were playing in Las Vegas, the cats were busy posting things to the ZEN Store. Up for sale upon our return were account bank slots and a new ship.

Account bank slots are being sold in groups of 10 for 1000 ZEN ($10 US). The amount is definitely cringe-worthy as other games' inventory items seem to sell for substantially less than $1 per slot. However, the slots are available for all players -- silver, gold and lifetime. Gold and Lifetime members were already granted 10 slots several months ago when the account bank first appeared in the game.

On a more exciting note, a new ship has appeared in the ZEN Store. The new Regent class ship (also known as the Assault Cruiser Refit) is now available for 2500 ZEN ($25 US). The new ship is an account-wide unlock, which comes as a relief to many avid STO players, and the price is comparable to the price of ships previously sold in the game.

The Regent is a lot like the Sovereign before her, yet she comes with a new wide-angle quantum torpedo launcher (180-degree targeting arc as opposed to the 90-degree arcs seen with other standard torpedoes) as well as a new metreon gas canister console.

Those who remember the famous Riker Maneuver seen in the film Star Trek: Insurrection will recall that metreon gas is highly unstable and was used by Commander Riker in order to thwart the Son'a enemies as they attacked the U.S.S. Enterprise in the Briar Patch Nebula.

The new universal ship console can be used in any console slot in any assault cruiser variant and will issue metreon gas from the ship's Bussard collectors, which will ignite, resulting in potentially devastating attacks. The ship also carries the following stats:

Alas, no manual steering column was included, leaving those of us who wanted to make Riker joystick jokes empty-handed. Making up for the lack of a joystick are the gorgeous lines the ship exhibits. I like sleek ships, and this one is stiletto-sharp. I bought it the day after I got home from Vegas. All of the pictures in today's column depict the Regent class with the exception of the sneak-peek screenshot of the new Romulan headquarters at the column's header!

Tribble rewards are available!

For those players who had access to and participated in the testing of Season Six on the game's Tribble test servers, the promised rewards are now available for pick-up. The first item is a fleet tribble, which can be equipped to provide the character one fleet mark per hour along with +5% hold resistance, +5% disable resistance, and +5% slow resistance.

The second reward is a very rare Breen duty officer named Ang the Vicious. Ang is a ground warfare specialist. If he is equipped as an active ground duty officer, he provides the character an increase in all damage output when in combat against Tholians (in both ground and space battle). He carries the aggressive, efficient, eidetic memory, and resolve traits when used in duty officer missions.

Both of the items can be claimed by accessing the ZEN Store in game and clicking on the Items tab (not the Legacy tab as has been used in the past). The items should be available to all those who have earned them -- the tribble to all who played for at least one hour during the designated Season Six time period on the test server, and the duty officer to all of those who completed at least one mission of the Tholian Incursion ground maps on the test server during the same time period.

Foundry update

While many of us were busy soaking in all the Star Trek humanly possible in Vegas, Cryptic Studios' own ZeroniusRex ("Zero") was busy updating the game's user generated content tool, the Foundry. In her most recent dev blog, Zero reminds everyone that the editing tool is now up and running for all players who have access. All Foundry missions have been restored to playability. It hasn't been made clear whether the ability to review a Foundry mission has been activated yet, but it wouldn't be surprising to hear that said feature is still offline while Foundry authors get a chance to review their published missions.

Zero reiterated some of the new assets that were pushed in Season Six, but she also dropped hints about what will be coming to the test server. Of note, Zero states that the Foundry team is working on the ability for authors to create their own patrol missions! More surprising is the fact that they've been working on this project throughout the Season Six push and are currently working out bugs in order to get it to the Holodeck (live) server soon.

Zero has encouraged all players who have access to the Tribble test servers to help the QA team when these new items are uploaded to help them "break things" and find the bugs before they end up on Holodeck.